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CD introduces
Taiwanese folk song to US audiences
By Shelley Shan / Staff reporter
The Taiwanese folk song Diu Diu Deng (¥á¥á»É¥J) was introduced to audiences in the
US through the National Public Radio (NPR) last week, as one of the East Asian
traditional songs collected in the folk music album Rabbit Days and Dumplings.
The album was created by South Korean-American Elena Moon Park, who was born and
raised in Tennessee.
To produce the album, Park selected folk and children¡¦s songs from Taiwan,
Japan, China, Tibet and South Korea and brought in dozens of musicians from New
York City for collaborations.
Park was invited to talk about her album on NPR¡¦s flagship news program All
Things Considered.
Diu Diu Deng was one of the two songs chosen for the album¡¦s introduction.
Program host Melissa Block laughed when she heard the diu diu sound in the song
and asked what it meant.
¡§The lyrics of the song [Diu Diu Deng] are describing a train as it enters a
tunnel and water drops onto the train¡¦s roof, making the sound ¡X diu diu ¡X which
sounds like a coin flipping onto a surface,¡¨ Park said.
The music was performed by Wu Man (§dÆZ) from China, who played the Pipa, a
Chinese four-stringed instrument. Aside from the Taiwanese lyrics, the song also
has English lyrics mixed in that explain the diu diu sound.
The radio program generated various responses from the program¡¦s listeners.
One listener, Jessica Turner, said that the song caught her attention as she was
driving home and she decided to stay in the car an extra minute to listen to it.
She said that the song gave her ¡§an unexpected rush of nostalgia.¡¨
¡§Imagine my surprise and delight when a song from one of my favorite childhood
CDs was presented as a part of this album,¡¨ she said. ¡§I think Diu Diu Deng had
a different name on the CD I had as a child, but I recognized it right away. The
sound of rain falling on the train was unmistakable.¡¨
Another listener, named Sandeep A Pawar, also commented on the song on
Amazon.com.
¡§Diu Diu Deng is mind-blowing. I can¡¦t listen to it enough. I have probably
heard it almost 100 times since this morning,¡¨ Pawar said.
An entry in the Encyclopedia of Taiwan, produced by the Ministry of Culture,
says that the melody probably came into existence around the beginning of 19th
century, when Chinese immigrant Wu Sha (§d¨F) led about 1,000 settlers from
China¡¦s Fujian and Guangdong provinces to reclaim land in Yilan County in
Taiwan.
The settlers were said to have heard the sound of water drops falling in tunnels
and turned it into a tune they hummed as they walked home from work.
The lyrics were filled in later by Taiwanese academic Hsu Ping-ting (³\¤þ¤B), who
studied the stories of the first people to populate Taipei.
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